Dr. Stephanie Hatten

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PBL- Project-based learning or sometimes Problem-based learning is one of the educational acronyms with two meanings and this has raised debate over which term is accurate in the education world or more importantly, which kind of instruction is more valuable. Educators argue about the meaning of this acronym because some teachers use this term incorrectly and therefore do not get the point of the word altogether. I have seen these arguments online and in person and as a mother I feel like shouting “Don’t make me come back there!” In the end, it is the misconceptions that occur when applying these terms that cause the problems. Project-based learning has a negative connotation because of the teachers who think this is the instructional strategy they are using when they ask the students to create a slide show about a country that nobody will ever really see. This is not PBL. Because you call the end product a ‘project” does not mean it is authentic learning so it does not fit in my personal definition of PBL. Some people will argue that some over achieving students will create amazing projects that will be detailed creative projects, but this will not be every student. Some will be asking, “What is the point?” Also, some teachers give the student a problem and consider this PBL. For example, a teacher may tell the students to plan a trip to a country. This is a great start but without guidelines and facilitating more learning than this beginning prompt, some students will not learn the objectives for the lesson, some overachievers will, but not all students. Also, PBL has been accused of taking more classroom time. I argue that IF done correctly, it does not. It just requires different class time. If the learning is worthwhile, valid, and reaches the same objectives as reading the chapters does, then it takes up the same amount of time and it is more effective. However, it is seldom implemented correctly because of the inherent confusions in the definition. It is sad when so many teachers have good intentions of using PBL but do so without fidelity and then give up because the end results were not what they were promised. (isn’t this true with any implementation)

RWL and what does it mean?

Therefore, to end confusion I like to consider the pinnacle of all lessons I create as RWL which means real world learning. I know I am not the first person to think this because John Dewey (whom I love) explained this concept years ago so it has been explained and reexplained in may ways but basically I see this real world learning as presenting the students with a real world situation and they need to solve the problem and present how they solved it with guidance along the way. (a combination of project and problem based learning) I propose as teachers that we think “RWL” before every lesson we write this year. We should start with a problem with objectives and the students create their own project using whatever tools they need to get the job done.

For quality RWL lessons they need to include:

1. a scenario for the student with decisions to be made

2. rubric of parts to include or consider, definite time restrictions and the limitations presented at beginning

3. scheduled checkpoint meetings with teacher to make sure all students are working and learning

4. list of objectives for the teacher to make sure the students are covering

5. time and place to present findings to more than just the teacher (in class, brochure, to an expert, on a blog, etc)

6. project evaluation and rebuttal process

7. Along the way there WILL need to be “organized chaos” which means different students on different tasks.

RWL Examples

For each grade and subject these components will look differently but they are all very important for the RWL process. For example, an elementary class may need to create a Wax Museum of the most important people in history. The teacher may offer a list of websites for information and a list of questions for the group to consider about their museum. The students would be assigned museum jobs and need guidance to prepare. Also, each student can be told they will play a character for the wax museum and need to find their own facts for their display. The other students can be the visiters to the museum. I have done something similar and it was a huge learning success that took time, but it was quality time. I once took a college history class where the professor assigned us a person to role play as the president’s cabinet and presented us with a problem each week. The professor played the president and the rest of us had to advice him as we would have if we were that person. I never worked so hard for any other class. I learned so much. Since this class was taught twenty years ago (but I still remember) I may now want to create a social media account as that person for anther way to present what I learned.

So lets start thinking of RWL lessons instead of spending our time arguing over if the P in PBL stands for project or problem. Lets focus on RWL which encompasses both and is embedded with student technology integration or real world skills aka 21st century skills, aka college readiness skills, (oh no here we go again arguing over terms). Let’s just say that our world has student technology use embedded into their daily lives and our lessons should be too to make them truly REAL WORLD LEARNING. The details of how are for a different blog.

Back in the late 90s I was a beginning first grade teacher who started realizing the impact of real world experiences in the classroom for student learning. In college I had read about John Dewey but those were just theory floating in my head until I experienced teaching for myself. I was just starting to discover the benefits of using student prior knowledge as well and I was constantly experimenting with anything that would gain me my students’ attention. In early literacy, the movement at the time was called print immersion. Teachers saved real text from the environment of the students and used this text to teach reading which was based on Dewey principals. For example, students would bring wrappers from food to look for numbers and read words they knew. This instructional practice swung on the pendulum toward whole language instruction rather than isolated phonics instruction in early literacy methods. I remember reading about print immersion and decided to add a center to my classroom decorated as a store with real food boxes and a trading card center made from Pokemon cards which were popular at the time. In this center, I would ask the students to choose a card and describe a character in their writing or to write a story about this character. I observed that the students loved these cards and watched the television show about the characters every day. I decided to apply their background knowledge for their writing and their interest level would motivate them to accomplish more challenging work. I was successful with this center and writing improved as some students brought their own cards to school to use for journal writing. I started to create math problems using the numbered strength of the characters that was presented on the cards, as well to motivate, especially the boys in my class. However, my students, along with others, started bringing these cards to the cafeteria. In this noninstructional setting, fights and arguments broke out as students traded their cards with each other. Parents came to the school and wanted cards back that their child gave to another. The principal was inundated with conflict brought about by the love of Pokemon cards campus-wide so soon after my instructional strategies started showing positive results, the cards were banned in the school. I would never forget my fledgling attempt to interact with my students and instruct with meaningful text from their world such as Dewey suggested. I continued to search for ways to motivate my students.

Soon after the ban of Pokemon cards, I recall a day after school with a student named Josue, in which I had tried for the hundredth time to help him add two groups of teddy bear counters that were supplied with the math curriculum. I had asked his mother if he could stay after school so we could accomplish this task, as I was determined to help him finally grasp the concept of addition. After Josue guessed the answer again and again, I realized he kept staring at the teddy bears and did not understand what I was asking. I finally asked him what he counts at home. He told me he did not count anything, but I told him I knew he counted something. Did he count cookies with his brothers to make shares equal? He shook his head. Did he count the times he could jump over cracks in the sidewalk? Again, he stared with no response. I then asked him what he did when he left school. He said that his father picked him up and took him to the local bar. Here Josue would sit and make sure his dad did not have too many beers to drive home. I asked him how he knew when his dad had had enough. He said he kept count of how many beers and stopped him after he had drunk five beers. That was his experience! I had it. I told him that he could add but just did not know it. If his dad drank two beers and then had two more, how many did he drink? Josue answered quickly, excitedly, and correctly. Since it was time to go, I asked Josue to bring me the tops of the beer bottles the next day. He brought more and more every day and he used them to work his math problems until he did not need the manipulative, just like the other students grew away from using the school-issued teddy bears. Since those bears had no meaning for him, the concept did not relate to his experiences. That day Josue learned he already knew how to add and I learned that Dewey was correct, the best learning happens when the teacher can take advantage of the needed symbiotic relationship of learning in the classroom and the experiential learning gained from the outside world, and his learning changed me as well.

I relate these stories of some of my first teaching experiences not to judge the parents of this child, but to explain real teaching experiences and my path to becoming a technology integration specialist led there by my relationship with John Dewey’s authentic learning theories. Soon after this story, with the drive to try anything to help my students, I started to see the tremendous motivation behind the earliest educational technologies available to me. Since I was willing to try anything, I became one of the first teachers to start going regularly to the school computer lab and using the simple software of the day such as drawing programs with stamps to create math story problems or writing prompts even though I had never drawn a picture on a computer myself. It is this spirit to be able to experiment and be borderline controversial that has served me well so this week when I was asked, “What characteristics of new teachers predict technology integration?” I said having an explorer spirit and to be able to use technology that they do not know everything about. So my advice is: Experiment with new digital manipulatives such as Web 2.0 tools that focus on authentic learning, even if you do not know how the lesson will turn out. When integrating technology, sit back, relax, and have a beer with Dewey.

I have told this story several times to start presentations about my journey into educational technology as the start of my career but it still holds relevance for me today and so it is a great place to start my blog. Since my job did not exist when I was a child, I could not have dreamed that this is how my life would turn out or that integrating technology into the elementary classroom would be so important to me. However, I can pinpoint the day I had the epiphany that I needed to integrate technology into my classroom. I was a tired first grade teacher who had just gotten home to my professional stay-at-home husband and our four children who were all seven and younger. I sat down the huge bag of papers I would have to grade when the kids fell asleep and I went to give everyone a hello hug. My son, Dean, who was about three years old came up to me and pulled on my dress. I leaned down and he asked me what was for supper. Since my husband did the cooking in the house, the question took me off guard and I just sighed and said, “I don’t know yet. I just got home.” Dean looked curiously at me and replied, “Just look it up on Whatsfordinner.com.” I laughed and he ran to ask his father. I realized in that split second that the children I was raising did not think parents had all the answers themselves, they just looked up everything on the internet. At the age of three he knew the answers to all of his questions were online waiting for someone to read them to him. This was such a different way of thinking than I had grown up with that I thought about this comment for days. Then it hit me. I was teaching six year olds who already lived in a different world than I had grown up with. I needed to teach them in a way that they could relate to and technology was the only way to achieve this. Integrating technology into my classroom was never a question of importance after that day. It was not just that I was preparing these children for a world that had not been invented yet, I was teaching and raising different creatures than myself who spoke a different language. If I wanted to stay relevant in their lives and communicate with them I was going to have to change as well. And so I did.